Updates

I’ll be on vacation for a few days. Here are a some updates on recent topics and questions that I have raised in this blog:
On blogging as “criticism,” see Nigel Beale vs. Ronan McDonald, and the thoughtful Oronte.
On Laurie Fendrich’s taste, be sure to see the last of her posts here.
On Jonathan Gotschall’s enthusiasms, [...]

Substance, Part II

In the last post, I examined Jonathan Gottschall’s recent essay about integrating the aims, techniques and rigors of the sciences into the study of literature. I pointed out that in order to stage his argument clearly, Gottschall built two constellations of adjectives. The first described poor literary criticism …

Theoretical, Speculative, Irrelevant, Wandering, Circuitous, [...]

Gently Used

“What’s wrong with cliches?” asked John McIntyre’s reader. McIntyre cites Frank Kermode’s notion that a cliche is wrong because it is symptomatic of “used thinking.”
Well, sure it is.
But what’s wrong with that?

“Under the Bus”

Newsweek has an interesting comment on the use of the phrase “to throw under the bus.” The expression is both evocative and totally weird. Is it a city bus, or a school bus? Is it moving? Why use the definite article instead of the indefinite article – “the” bus instead of [...]

Misspoke

Hendrik Hertzberg has a quick and dirty archeology of the word “misspoke” in The New Yorker. The article is not really exceptional, but Hertzberg distinguishes himself by calling attention to an interesting fact: as one of its samples of how people use “to misspeak,” The OED offers a statement from none other than Richard [...]

Thought, Language, Politics and Common Sense

Yesterday, I described George Orwell’s “Politics and Language” using two versions of his hypothesis. In the first version, Orwell writes that chaotic politics is a result of chaotic language. In the second version, Orwell’s idea is that thought corrupts language while language corrupt thought. These two versions are not identical, but [...]